Sir,
It may sound unbelievable but it is a fact that in our country having a population of more than 125 crores only 5.43 crore are tax payers as per the latest data available with the Government of India. It has been desired by our PM to aspire the people to have 10 crore taxpayers within our tax bases. He has warned “the long arm of the law” will catch up with those evading taxes. There should be respect for law among all citizens and even fear of the long arm of the law for those who evade taxes. At the same time he said that the people should not fear tax administrators as our countrymen inherently are honest and asked the taxmen to build a bridge of trust so as to achieve tax collection targets without coercion. Tax administrators should have a cooperative approach so that tax payers should not face any problem in paying taxes. It is pertinent to mention that the Income Tax Department has 42000 officers, yet only 8 percent of the revenue comes from scrutiny of returns and as much as 92 percent of direct tax revenue come from tax deducted at source(TDS) of mostly salaried people, advance taxes and self assessment taxes.
It is not difficult to achieve the target of taxpayer base to 10 crore if the people in general and business class in particular are educated properly by highlighting the benefits which would be available to them if more and more people would contribute for the development of the country by way of paying taxes honestly. Besides highlighting the benefits for depositing tax by publishing advertisements in the daily news papers Income tax department should also hold seminars/ debates in each educational institute where students should be taught about the benefits of paying due taxes to Govt.
In view of the above, all those individuals/ business establishments who are evading tax are requested in their own interest as well as in the interest of the country to reflect their actual income honestly in their financial documents/ accounts and pay due tax to the Government so that the target fixed by our PM may be achieved in the current financial year and the problem of black money may be uprooted from this country.
Yours etc……
S.S.Jamwal,
New Plots, Jammu
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